UK doctor predicts possibility of annual coronavirus vaccinations to combat emerging variants

With new coronavirus variants being discovered, a UK doctor who advises the British government on coronavirus-related matters stated that there may be a need for people to get vaccinated annually because of these new strains.

Anthony Harnden, Deputy Chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation in the UK, stated that at present, coronavirus is so prevalent and it is also rapidly mutating, which results in new variants popping up. He further said that the world may be in a situation where an annual coronavirus vaccine would have to be created in order to cope with new strains.

Fox News reported that UK hospitals are now more strained than they were during the first wave of the pandemic in early 2020. The new variant is also rapidly spreading across the nation and health officials are expecting the death toll to surpass 100,000 soon.

The health secretary of the UK, Matt Hancock, said that the national restrictions that were put in place due to the new variant caused a drop in the number of coronavirus cases by 22 percent over the weekend. However, he still emphasised that the country is still a long way before they could lift restrictions.

Recently, there were two new coronavirus variants that caught the attention of doctors. One was from South Africa, and the other is the one that is spreading in the UK. A BBC report revealed that there is some evidence that shows that the new variant may be associated with higher mortality, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson noted.

Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser of the US, narrated on CBN that authorities in the US must expand their genomic surveillance so as to identify new variants that would emerge.

Annual Coronavirus Vaccination

"What we will do and are doing already is making preparations for the possibility that down the pipe, down the line, we may need to modify and upgrade the vaccines. We don't need to do that right now," said Dr Fauci in WSJ's report.

He stressed that the best way to prevent the virus from evolving further is to inoculate as many people as possible using the vaccines that are available at present.